Dough for 250 °C – the adjustments that rescue a home oven
A Neapolitan dough baked at 250 °C dries out if you change nothing. Lower the hydration, adjust the ball weight and learn why it works in a home oven.
Quick answer: A classic 65 % Neapolitan dough baked for 8–12 minutes instead of 60 seconds has time to dry out. Lower the hydration to 60–62 % and increase the ball weight slightly – the dough then holds on to more moisture and structure through the longer bake.
Why the original dough isn’t enough
The high hydration of Neapolitan dough is optimised for a 60–90 second bake in extreme heat (see which flour for which oven). During a home oven’s much longer bake, that extra moisture has time to evaporate completely before the base has taken on colour, which gives a tough or cardboard-like texture rather than a moist, soft crumb.
The adjustments
Lower the hydration to 60–62 % – and there is a test set up to measure the difference in a home oven: 62% vs 70% in a home oven. Feel free to increase the ball weight by a percent or so, giving the dough more ”reserve” before it dries out completely. Otherwise, keep the house recipe’s salt and yeast percentages.
See the full protocol for home-oven baking in pizza in a home oven, and the basics the recipe starts from in the hydration guide. Recalculate the quantities with the calculator.
